3 Comments:

There is no explanation. Since indoctrination is what many public schools aspire to, I'm really not too surprised. I teach junior high in Tennessee and if I had left that trash for a sub to show, I'd be skewered, so to speak. First of all, a movie isn't a lesson plan.Second, a movie about gays shouldn't be shown to anyone, other than trying to make al Queda talk at Club Gitmo.

Thanks, Jon. I agree that it is merely indoctrination. I can't even figure out what type of class could legitimately use this movie. Social sciences, history, math, and sciences are all obvious "nos." English seems unlikely. It might be one thing to assign the book, though to go and claim that it is great literature would be a stretch. But even if you some how to assign the book, I can't see how the movie could be assigned.

Speaking as a teacher of English, with so little time available in the curriculum as it is (we currently kill nearly two months of the school year teaching to our mandatory high stakes tests--and doing various local "benchmark" tests directly related to that), I can't imagine how one might justify even teaching a book like "Brokeback Mountain," let alone showing the video. Can one compare it to Shakespeare? Dunn? Twain? Hardly.

Of course, if one's school is all about social justice, then I suspect it would be required reading and viewing rather than that dead white male misogynist Shakespeare and all the rest.